


Valkyrie

by Kleine_Motte



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleine_Motte/pseuds/Kleine_Motte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an uncharacteristic display of mercy, Pearl protects a fallen soldier during the rebellion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valkyrie

“She’s so beautiful, Rose.”

Pearl cradled the wounded Jasper’s head on her lap, sweeping the luxurious mane of hair away from her closed eyes.

“She almost _shattered_ you.”

“And _I_ shattered her.”

The battlefield around them was submerged in a thick, cold fog. The air was moist and astringent and Pearl could smell the death around her but she could also smell Rose. Her liege approached her, vines of wild strawberries burst and curled out from the ground where her bare feet made contact with the earth; the crisp sound of leaves sprouting and fruit ripening at her toes under each footfall seemed to drown out the sound of the carrion crows that cried in the distance.

Pearl glided her hand down the soldier’s face, her fingertips light as a the kiss of a butterfly’s wing as she reverently laid worship to the Jasper’s closed eyes and plush lips, sealed in a frown. Her thumb then brushed against what was her doing: a deep puncture into the pavilion of the soldier’s gem that was mounted where her nose should be. The fracture was almost alive, a spiderweb of lines grew from the crack in the stone, causing it to strobe and crackle with irregular bursts of orange heat and light.

“Let me heal her, Rose.”

There was a hesitation, then. A crow cried plaintively into the fog.

“You’ve never asked me to heal another gem before.”

“I’m asking you now.”

“Why?”

Pearl’s fingertips mapped the brushstrokes of red that crossed over the soldier’s brow and the other that curled over her cheek.

“ _Why_ ,” Pearl echoed, in a whisper. “ _Why_ …”

She felt tears fill her eyes, then. Suddenly overcome with helplessness she tilted her face upward to meet Rose’s black gaze. Pearl’s arms swept around the soldier’s white hair, cradling her protectively against her.

Wordlessly, Rose circled around to Pearl’s side, a bramble of newly-born wild strawberries trailing out from underneath the earth-stained hem of her gown. There was a frightengly impersonal cast to Rose’s face as she knelt down beside Pearl that, if only for one moment, filled her with dread and impelled her embrace the Jasper tighter.

Rose bent and pressed her forehead to Pearl’s, her eyes fluttering shut with the intimate contact. A tremulous gasp escaped Pearl’s lips, startled by the tenderness of the gesture.

The two gems stayed pressed together in the silence of the empty battlefield. The cabochon on Pearl’s forehead created a nebulous channel between their minds, and through the haze, Pearl could see fragments of Rose’s memories as they siphoned into her. Pearl’s own recollections began to sheet past her closed eyes, relaying the scene and disclosing to her liege all that she did not witness.

The Jasper had emerged from the fog without warning and Pearl was alone. She was a beautiful specimen of quartz, immensely tall with golden skin and golden eyes with a trim waist and heavy breasts and a glorious, rakish mane of silver hair. She was all muscle, her bare arms and legs sturdy and thick as tree trunks; her large hands were hard and calm and perfect as stones polished by the ocean. Pearl drew her swords with a flourish; the intruder only answering her with a crooked, wolfish flash of teeth.

The Homeworld soldier initiated the dance first, somersaulting towards her in a dash of white fire. The smaller gem had taken to the air quick as a falcon, duel sabers flashing as she spun back to earth to meet the soldier with a downward thrust of her blades, accepting her invitation.

During their dance, Pearl held her own against the mountain of a quartz with a playful, insolent delight, effortlessly sidestepping and tumbling and leaping with an athletic finesse each time the quartz soldier charged at her with blade or fist.

But when Rose had breathlessly crested the hill with shield and sword to intervene, when she had franticly shouted Pearl’s name to implore her to stop, Pearl had foolishly let her eyes wander for an instant to search for the source of the cry. The knight and her lady’s eyes met; Pearl’s step faulted and the Jasper gleefully took the opening.

The soldier had the smaller gem down on the ground by the throat in a writhing knot of slender arms and scratching hands and bare, thrashing legs. Pearl’s voice was a strained, choked garble of syllables and screams as the soldier squeezed the life from her, her tiny arm whipping impotently beside her in the dirt, struggling to grasp ahold of her discarded saber.

With a cruel snicker and darkened eyes, the Jasper raised her fist for the death blow, intent and eager to shatter the cabochon on Pearl’s forehead. But then…

 _Then_ …

“She couldn’t do it, Rose,” Pearl pleaded through the link between their minds.

Something akin to recognition had passed over the Jasper’s face then as she looked down at the squirming pearl. She remembered how her fist had stilled and relaxed; how the pupils in her golden eyes had rounded into fat, black orbs; how her white, triumphant grin had slackened and her eyebrows tilted upward in worry. The Jasper’s voice was hushed and full of gravel when she spoke to her and the vaguest memory of it launched Pearl’s heart into a frenzy against her ribs.

“ _It’s you_ …”

The Jasper’s slackened grip on her throat had allowed Pearl the flexibility she needed to seize her saber from the dirt beside her. She thrusted the hilt towards her foe with a shout, the pommel meeting the gem on the soldier’s face with a sickening crack, the blow knocking back her chin and sending her tumbling to the ground, defeated at last.

Pearl’s hands tangled themselves into the Jasper’s hair, her composure swiftly unraveling.

“I don’t know why…but she didn’t do it,” Pearl murmured aloud, tears streaming from her eyes freely.

Silently, Pearl opened her eyes, severing the connection between her mind and Rose’s. When her bleary eyes focused on the other gem’s face in front of her, her lips parted in a state of wonder. Tears rolled down the soft curve of Rose’s cheek, the miraculous power imbued in them painting trails of glistening, iridescent webs across her face. Her face was impassive as she met her gaze; the black, starless skies of her irises mutely instructing her to quickly do as she willed.

A single sob escaped Pearl’s lips as she reached upward to caress Rose’s face, brushing her thumb underneath her eye to collect her tears.

“Thank you,” she mouthed, leaning forward to press her mouth to Rose’s in a deep kiss of gratitude.

With her thumb bathed in moisture, she looked down to the dying Jasper on her lap, tentatively dabbing the glittering tears across her broken gem, a warmth swelling in her her chest as she watched the fracture lines retreat and dissolve under her touch.

“We need to leave, now,” Rose said, her voice thick as she stood to her feet, ignoring Pearl’s ministrations. “When she wakes up she will attack you again. She will not be merciful this time. Neither will I.”

The fluttering of her heavy white skirts filled the air with the scent of strawberries, of spring, of Rose, and Pearl sobbed again, with the realization that neither of them belonged in this garden of death. Not even the beautiful soldier in her arms.

Pearl looked up at Rose’s turned back, her eyes pleading.

“Rose!”

“She won’t remember you, or any of this when she wakes up, Pearl. Now please, let’s go.”

Pearl shook her head, but her protests died stubbornly in her throat.

_But she does remember. She remembered me. Somehow._

Helpless to change Rose’s mind, Pearl bent forward, pressing the cabochon on her forehead to the Jasper’s cheek, her breath quivering against the soldier’s hair.

“We’ll meet again.”

She reached behind her back blindly to pull one of the many ornamental beads off of her embellished sash. Pearl took the soldier’s hand in her own, pulling her fingers open to place the small bauble inside her fist. She closed her hand with a firm squeeze and gently set the Jasper’s head aside on the ground so she could stand.

“Quickly, Pearl,” her liege reminded, looking over her shoulder.

With that, Pearl darted away from the fallen soldier to stand again at Rose’s side, the two gems retreating swiftly into the mist.

 

* * *

 

Jasper awoke with a groan, her head aching and limbs heavy as her eyes blinked rapidly, adjusting to the bright grey sky above her.

She sat upright with a hiss, her head spinning with disorientation.

“Why?”

Like instinct, Jasper’s thoughts became delirious and violent, her head whipping frantically around to find just who or what had struck her and left her flat on her back in dirt. All murderous intent soon vanished into bewilderment when she saw the lush garland of wild strawberries that wreathed around her body, the vines crawling up her legs and feet in elegant curls.

When she bent forward to scrape away the delicate tendrils, an object fell from her outstretched hand into the soil with a soft chime, giving her sudden pause. Her pupils blew wide with curiosity as she reached for it, plucking it out of the earth with her large fingers and rolled it into her hand, feeling the surprising weight of it.

It was a fat, round sea pearl the color of starlight. It was bound together with blue thread along with a small silver bell that tinkled sweetly as it rolled around the valley of her red palm.

The bell’s song brought about a strobe of fragmented, opaque memories to flash across Jasper’s mind of _that_ day, and she closed her fist around the pearl with a shudder, overwhelmed. Couched in the lightning storm of recollection she heard her voice, distant but clear, crawling over the battlefield and washing over her like seawater from the tide.

_We’ll meet again…_

Jasper mutely held the pearl to her lips, her face relaxed, a pleasant, anxious warmth beginning to bloom in her breast.

“Yes we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is the first fanfic I’ve completed/shared in years and I wrote it in one go tonight with minimal editing because this plot bunny was giving me so. much. grief. Please excuse my dust!


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